1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to portable intelligent communications devices and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method for handling initiation of calls by such portable intelligent communications devices.
2. Description of Related Art
A new class of communication devices has been developed which includes a full computer integrated with the communications hardware and software. These devices differ significantly from personal digital assistants (PDAS) and handheld personal computers (HPCs) in that they are designed extensively to be a communications device rather than merely a "mobile computer." As such, the top features for the communications device are telephony, enhanced telephony, messaging, and information services. In order to enable at least some of these features, the portable intelligent communications device is able to be connected to the Internet by either a wired link or a wireless link. It will also be understood that certain software applications are provided within the portable intelligent communications device which facilitate the aforementioned features, as well as other desirable features such as a Personal Information Manager (PIM), games, and the like. An exemplary portable intelligent communications device is shown and disclosed in a patent application entitled "Switching Of Analog Signals In Mobile Computing Devices" and having Ser. No. 08/796,119, which is owned by the assignee of the present invention and is hereby incorporated by reference.
It will be understood that the aforementioned portable intelligent communications device is targeted to the traveling business person, particularly to one which travels to and calls foreign locations. Due to the change in time zones between and even within countries, it is important for the business person to know the local time for a call's recipient so as to place such a call during the recipient's normal working hours. Since the intended call recipient may also have several phone numbers of which one is best for a particular time range, it is also important to know which phone number to dial during the local time at which the call is initiated. This is also true for call recipients within the same area code as the portable intelligent communications device. While prior solutions to these tasks have involved a caller checking the time zone and calculating the local time for the call recipient from a table to determine the appropriateness of placing the call and/or manually checking a separate table of several possible phone numbers, it would be desirable for an apparatus and method to be developed in a communications device which automates such tasks.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method in a portable intelligent communications device for automatically determining the local time of a recipient when initiating a call.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method in a portable intelligent communications device which automatically initiates a call to a recipient depending on the local time of such recipient.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method in a portable intelligent communications device which automatically provides a prompt for manual initiation of a call to a recipient depending on the local time of such recipient.
Yet another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method in a portable intelligent communications device which automatically selects one of a plurality of phone numbers for contacting a call recipient depending on the local time of such recipient.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method in a portable intelligent communications device which provides a message indicating one of several options when the local time of the call recipient is outside the time range for all stored phone numbers therefor.
These objects and other features of the present invention will become more readily apparent upon reference to the following description when taken in conjunction with the following drawings.